Chapter Text
It’s official. Marty hates himself. Wait, no. That sounds worse than it is. Marty hates the person he looks like. Which makes him hate himself—oh. Well, okay, maybe it is that bad.
Hate is an extremely strong word, he knows that. He knows that hate should only be reserved for the worst people, like Hitler, or his friend TJ’s dad, or the current President because he’s the worst. But Marty just can’t help it. He was having a shitty day. A shitty life.
It’s his third week at Shadyside High, and he’s miserable. His best friend is at a completely different school this year, and Marty has never felt so isolated. His mom told him that he couldn’t go to Grant with TJ because of the feeder pattern, but his grades are good enough that he can transfer over, easy peasy. He thought middle school was hell, but this is much worse. He’s not allowed to wear his hat in school, so he’s forced to have his hair down all the time, or tied up in a “man bun,” as TJ says. It doesn’t even look like a man bun. It looks like a normal girl bun and Marty’s sick of it.
The worst part is, nobody knows his name.
He asked his mom to change his name on the roster, to send in a note to the office explaining that the name on the attendance sheets isn’t his name, but his mother just knelt down and pat his head. " Sweetheart, I know things are tough right now, but it’ll all pass eventually,” she said. Like me , he'd think to himself, and his mother would continue. “High school is where everyone figures themselves out. You’ll get there.”
He already knows who he is. He’s Marty. That’s it. Not , “oh, actually, I go by ‘Marty’,” or “could you please call me ‘Marty’ instead?” He’s Marty. His name is Marty.
“My name is Marty,” he told the teacher. He’s in his math class right now, something TJ would encourage him to skip. The room smells like old lady and pencils, which makes sense, considering the only thing the teacher lets them use is Ticonderogas. The walls are decorated with posters, some hand made and some printed off from a generic EDU site. Marty can guess that it’s supposed to be encouraging, but it just makes the room look a lot smaller.
“That’s not what it says on the roster,” the teacher squawked. She had wide eyes and a large nose that looked like a beak. Mrs. Ulrich was a bitter old bitch, with three kids that are probably doctors or some other fuckall job that puts them in a hundred thousand a year. Marty can tell Old Bitch hates kids, just by the way she publically humiliated Kimmy last week for doing nothing but not knowing how to solve an equation or the way she did the same thing to Raquel for having an all-access nurse pass when she had anxiety attacks.
Old Bitch turns to address the class, “This is the time when you freshman and sophomores should start to embrace your God-given names. In the real world, you can’t put a silly nickname on your resume. No one at your office job will call you ‘Pickle’, that’s incredibly unprofessional.”
Marty sinks lower and lower in his chair as she drones on. It wasn’t a nickname. It wasn’t a phase. He’s so fucking tired of people just ‘forgetting’ or saying none of it’s real, or saying his name and following it up with she . Is it really that hard? He’s tried to be understanding with a lot of people asking about it, asking how he knew, asking about what was in his pants, telling him he’s just a dyke—that one probably hurt the most. He’d thought of Amber, who’d struggled for so long to accept that she liked girls.
“So, I’ll be calling you by your real name—” the teacher starts, but Marty doesn’t listen. He scoots his seat back as fast as he can, grabs his bag, and walks out.
———
“Cutting class? Really?” His mother scolded. “I expected more from you.”
Marty was seated on the couch in the living room, arms crossed over his stomach. His mother just got off the phone with the principal of Shadyside High, and she didn’t sound happy.
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” He grumbled. “She refused to call me by my name, Ma, I don’t really expect you to understand what that’s like.”
“You need to learn to respect your elders, sweetheart. I know they may not see things your way, but try to understand what we’re coming from—”
“No.” Marty stood, “Who I am isn’t other people's opinion anymore!”
“Who you are ,” his mother said sternly, “is someone that you don’t know yet. You know that all of this isn’t real, sweetheart. I’ve tried to work with you on this, but—”
“You can’t—” Marty paused, his voice cracking. “You can’t ‘work with me’ on this! I’m a person . I don’t—I’m not a girl, Ma! I’ve been telling you this for years and you still just—you don’t listen to me!” Tears well up in his eyes as he listens to his voice echoing through the house.
He met his mother’s cold gaze, “Go to your room. We’ll talk about this when your father gets home.”
Marty held his breath and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He blinked back his tears and nodded, starting towards the stairs. He didn’t understand this, why was it so difficult for people to grasp? He’s had to explain himself so many times, and it’s getting exhausting trying to be nice and polite every time someone misgenders him or “doesn’t agree with his choices”. It’s not a choice, it’s just who he is.
Gently, he closes the door to his room, making sure it doesn’t make any sound. He pulls open his closet door and pushes all of his hanging clothes aside to slide into the small space. He reaches up and pulls the door closed and feels along the wall for the light button. When he finds it, his space is quickly lit, and he feels a weight lift off of his shoulders. He exhales a shaky breath and opens a drawer along the side of his closet, pulling out a black beanie. He shoves his hair into it as fast as possible and pulls it over his head.
He settles into the corner on a small pillow and rests his head against the wall, trying to calm himself down. “This will pass,” he whispered to himself. " I will pass." He repeats it like a mantra, over and over, until the words start to merge together and don’t make sense anymore. He reaches into the pocket of his hoodie and grabs his phone, tapping anxiously on the side with the pads of his fingers. With a shaky hand, he dials the only person he can think of. He picks up on the first ring.
“Marty? Why are you — what's up?” TJ asks.
He lets out another shaky breath, “Hey TJ. Um…” He bites his lip, focusing on one of the lights until his eyes go blurry. Clearing his throat, he tries to mimic TJ's deep voice. “I don’t—I can’t ...be here right now...can I come over? Please?” He cringes at the way it sounds. Not only does he sound desperate, but he sounds like he's trying too hard. Why couldn't it just be effortless for him, too?
“ Yeah, ” TJ says gently. “ Yeah, man, whatever you need, you know that. Do you need to pack a bag? ”
“I don’t know…” Marty fiddles with his beanie. “I just can’t…”
“ You don’t have to explain yourself to me. The door’s open for you anytime. Do you need me to stay on with you until you get here? ”
“No, I should…” Marty licks his lips, “I should be okay.” He stretches over to reach the shelf on the far side of his closet and pulls out a black and orange bookbag wedged on the side.
“ Are you sure? ”
“Yeah, I think it’ll be better if you don't.” He slowly pushes the closet door open, turning off the light. Once he’s out, he grabs his running shoes. “I, uh, I think running would do me some good right now. It’d be kind of weird if you just listened to me heave on the other end.”
“ Are you sure you want to run, man? I could ask Amber to go on break and pick you up or something. ”
Marty rolls his eyes, “TJ, it’s fine. I like running, remember?” He unplugs his charger from the outlet next to his night table and stuffs it in the front pocket of his bag. .
“ Yeah, you’re right, sorry. I just didn’t know how much whatever just happened took out of you. ”
“Nothin’ I can’t handle.” He eyes the glass Snapple jar on top of his desk. He painted it over with fabric paint and told his parents it was a rainy day jar, but he knew what it was for. “I’ll see you in ten, yeah?”
“ Okay. Be safe. ”
Marty smiles, pushing open his window, “I will.” He hangs up, and stuffs his phone in his bag. He grabs the bag and climbs out onto the roof, shutting his window behind him. He throws the bag down first before rolling down the shutters and landing in the front yard. He wasn’t worried about whether or not his mom saw him, because he knows she’s probably in the basement watching The Ellen Degeneres Show or something. He picks up his bag and, with one last glance at his house, sets off for TJ’s.
———
Marty sat on the floor of TJ’s room, going through some of TJ’s old clothes. He was nice like that—every time he grew out of something, he let Marty take a look at it to see if he wanted it because he knew his parents wouldn’t let him in the men’s section of the store. Sometimes Marty would bring his clothes to give to TJ’s sister Amber. She was nice, but he never saw much of her. It’s bad to say, but he was kinda glad he barely saw her because she’s the girl his parents always wanted. No, nope, don’t think about that.
“So…” TJ says. He shuffles closer to Marty. “We don’t have to talk about it, but I'm here if you need to.”
“I know,” Marty replied. He laid down on the carpet, taking a few moments to squirm around and get comfortable.
TJ runs a hand through his hair and pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “We could play Minecraft or something,” he suggests. “Or we could go bake. My mom just bought this muffin mix, and—”
“I want to cut my hair,” Marty blurts.
“Oh. Uh, wow, okay, um…” TJ tries to collect his thoughts.
“I mean...isn't it, like, a rite of passage or something?” He quickly sits up. “It’s the first step to my transition, I think. Or at least it feels like it. If I—” he sucks in a quick breath. “If I look like a boy, maybe I’ll feel like one. And then maybe people will treat me like one…”
TJ’s mouth is wide open. He quickly closes it and scoots over to Marty, wrapping his arms around him tightly. “Marty, you are a boy, okay. I don’t want you to...I hate that you feel like you aren’t. Because you are. Hell, you’re like, the most masculine dude I’ve ever met, and some of the guys at my school are, like, oozing testosterone.”
TJ stands up and walks over to his bed. “I was saving this for your birthday, but…” He reaches under and pulls out a striped gift box with an obnoxious bow on the front. “Here.”
Marty hesitantly takes it from his hand. The box weighs almost nothing, so it’s not really helpful when it comes to guessing. “What is it?”
“You have to open it,” TJ says.
“Wow, cryptic,” Marty mutters, pulling the lid off. “Oh, and you even got the paper stuff in here. Is this a joke gift or something? Because it’s not funn—”
The words die in his throat. He glances up at TJ, who gives him a nod. He slowly reaches out to touch what’s in the box, feeling the fabric of it under his fingers.
Inside of the box was a white binder.
“TJ…” he breathes. “How did you…?”
“I, uh, I bought it off of a Big Brother site. So, it’s not, like, new , but I just thought that for your first one, it’d—”
Marty drops the box and stands, wrapping TJ in a tight hug. “Thank you,” he says, squeezing tighter.
“Dude, don’t even. Brothers for life, remember?” TJ pries Marty off of him—he's not much of a hugger—and holds him at arm's length. “I know, it's gonna be amazing to be flat, but you can't wear it all the time. You have to take breaks, okay? That means you can't wear it to bed or when you're at track.”
“That's—that's fine," Marty stutters. "I can't even be mad about that— holy shit, I'm gonna be flat! ”
There was a soft tap at TJ’s door. Standing in the doorway was TJ’s sister Amber. “Hey. Mom’s not gonna be home until late, so I brought dinner,” she says, tucking a long strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I got some for you, too, Marty.”
He perks up at the mention of food. “Breakfast?” He asks.
She meets his eyes with a deadly serious gaze, “Hell yeah.” She pulls a styrofoam box out of the large takeaway bag and opens it, revealing pancakes. “Vegan blueberry.”
TJ wrinkles his nose, “Why’d you get vegan pancakes?” he asks Marty.
“Because I like the banana.”
“Then why not just get banana pancakes—”
“Because it overpowers the flavor of the pancakes! If you put banana in the regular pancakes with nothing but banana, it just tastes like a gross banana mush! But when you make the pancakes out of banana and add vanilla extract and blueberries—”
“Marty, it’s not that deep,” TJ deadpans.
Marty rolls his eyes, rolling one of his pancakes. “It's deep to me,” he grumbles.
TJ's gaze flickers to his sister. “Amber, are you busy right now?”
“Do I look busy?” She asks.
Marty tilts his head and squints, “I dunno, you're kinda hard to read sometimes.” He shoves the pancake roll into his mouth. Eating sloppily was his favorite thing to do. It pissed his parents off and they always told him it wasn't ladylike, but neither was he.
“Well, I'm not, so,” Amber huffs out a sigh. “What do you want?”
“Can you cut Marty's hair?”
Her glance moves between the two boys for a moment before she speaks up. “You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do this.”
Marty laughs, “Yeah, me neither!”
Amber stands next to Marty, slinging an arm around his neck. “He's my favorite little brother! Just look at him!”
“I'm right here,” TJ mumbles, and Amber keeps talking.
“Of course I'll do it. You didn't even have to ask.”
Marty looks up at her with a thankful gaze. He’s kind of ashamed to admit that he uses his dysphoria as an excuse not to be friends with Amber. More often than not, Amber will unintentionally trigger him, just because she’s a girl. When Marty was younger, his parents would always compare Amber to him, asking him why he didn’t want to attend ballet like Amber did, or why he didn’t have a boyfriend like she did. On a horrific October afternoon, they asked him if TJ was his boyfriend. Gross. But Amber wasn’t a bad person. It’s not like he didn’t want to be her friend because she was a bitch or because she was fake or something. She was an amazing person. It just hurts Marty to know that while she’s an amazing person, he’ll always be compared to her, and he’ll always be the lesser.
Maybe once he passes it’ll be easier to be her friend.
Amber leads Marty by the hand into their Jack and Jill bathroom, TJ trailing close behind. He pushes his office chair into the bathroom, rolling it in front of the mirror. Marty sits cross-legged on the chair, and Amber stands behind him, hands on his shoulders.
“So,” she starts, “What are you looking for with this? What do you want it to look like?”
Marty takes a moment to think. He scrunches up his face and sighs, “I don’t know, like a boy, I guess?”
“Very specific,” Amber deadpans.
TJ grabs a top sheet from their linen closet and drapes it over Marty’s torso. Marty leans forward a bit and TJ ties the sheet behind his neck with a hair tie. He pulls his phone from the pocket of his blue hoodie and puts it on his iHome, cueing up the speaker.
“Just make it look good,” Marty says. “Masculine. Make it masculine, too. Like…” he hesitates, in thought. “Vaguely like a fuckboy’s hair.”
TJ lets out a loud guffaw, and Amber rolls her eyes. “Don’t laugh, TJ, I remember when you put so much gel in your hair, you cried because it wouldn’t wash out.” She met Marty’s gaze in the mirror. “It took a week of sink shampoos and deep conditions.”
“Yikes,” Marty commented.
“Anyway,” Amber continues. “I have to take your beanie off, so if you want to close your eyes, that’s fine. I’ll tell you when it’s short enough to open your eyes, and then you can help me style it from there.”
Marty nods and sucks in a breath. He squeezes his eyes shut, and—
“Wait!” TJ exclaims. Marty opens his eyes, blinking away the purple dots that clouded his vision. “As the Music Master of Salon de Kippen —”
“I don’t think that’s right,” he says.
TJ continues, “You have to pick the music we hack your hair off to!” He grabs the bottom of the chair and spins it so it faces him, pulling a loud yelp from Marty. “This is a milestone in your life. One of the biggest things that will ever happen to you.” He tilts his head, “Y’know, besides starting T, and getting the surgeries, and going to college, and—”
“Okay, we get it!” Amber groans.
TJ grabs hold of Marty’s shoulders. “This is a movie moment, dude! And you know that whenever they have memorable shit or montages or whatever, they have music that gets stuck in your head.”
“Like ‘Unwritten’ from The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants ,” Amber adds.
“Yeah—no,” TJ says, wrinkling his nose at his sister. “Shut up about Natasha Bedingfield.” He turns back to Marty. “Anyway, you have to pick a song to immortalize this moment.”
“Fuck, this is a lot of pressure,” Marty groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Well, what have you been listening to a lot lately?” TJ supplies.
“Uh, Glass Animals , Arcade Fire —damn, have you heard some of their stuff from Everything Now ? That shit goes hard, dude!” He exclaims. “When I first listened to ‘Creature Comfort,’ I—” Marty stopped. That’s it.
“That’s it,” he says. “That’s the one, man, ‘Creature Comfort,’ that’s the one!”
TJ throws him a small smile and slides down to the ground, leaning against the cabinets below the sink. He scrolls through his phone, looking up the song on his Spotify. Amber ducks away into TJ’s room and returns moments later with a pair of kitchen scissors. She opens a few drawers to pull out an electric razor. “Okay,” Amber says. “Eyes shut. Let Salon de Kippen work their magic.”
Marty lets out a steady breath through his nose and covers his eyes. He feels Amber slowly pull the beanie off of his head, and he chuckles at the static it creates. “It tingles, kinda,” he says.
Amber scoffs, “You’re a doof.” She grabs a hair tie and scissors off the bathroom counter. “Okay, I’m gonna section your hair off before I hack it all off. This might take a little bit of time, and it’s gonna look like a hot mess, but it’s all about the process.”
“Is that your argument for your dance routine, too?” TJ challenges.
“Shut up!”
“Guys,” Marty starts, “this isn’t about y’all. You can fight whenever you want, but right now, can we just stick to cutting my hair?”
The twins murmur in agreement. “Plus,” He says, “I’d rather you guys not fight while Amber has scissors in her hand?”
“That’s smart,” Amber replies, tying off part of his hair.
“Jesus, this intro’s long,” TJ groans. “I mean, it’s cool, but it needs to hurry up.”
“It’s almost done,” Marty assures him. Amber starts cutting the first section when the lyrics echo throughout the bathroom.
Some boys hate themselves
Spend their lives resenting their fathers
TJ laughs, “That’s true.”
Marty tries to nod, but Amber holds his head in place. “Yeah, the song’s really truthful. Amber, how far are we?”
“I only did one,” she says.
The anticipation was killing him. Well, not really. Waiting for things was hard. When he was younger, any time he had to wait for something, he’d cut in line or throw a tantrum. Or both, if the opportunity presented itself. Maybe that’s why he liked running so much. He could be fast, he didn’t have to wait for anyone or anything, he could just go.
Waiting to come out was hard, too. He didn’t want to have to ‘wait until he was ready’ because he was ready. He’s been ready all his life! The waiting that people told him to do was usually only for the benefit of who he had to tell. They were the ones who weren’t ready. Now, though, they’d have to be ready, because he wasn’t going to give them any room to question who he was.
“Alright,” Amber says. “I’ve hacked ‘em all off.”
Marty takes a deep breath, blinking with his eyes closed to ensure they’re still shut. “Okay…” He listens to the song playing in the background, tapping his knees to the beat.
It goes on and on, I don’t know what I want
On and on, I don’t know if I want it
“You can open your eyes if you want,” She says nonchalantly. “Just...be aware, you look like a hot mess.”
He nods slowly opens his eyes. He can’t really see anything at first since he squeezed his eyes shut so tight, but after the blurriness clears away, he looks at himself in the mirror.
He looks like a hot mess, that’s for sure. His hair, although it’s shorter, spikes up around his face. He kind of looks like Molly Ringwald, or maybe a porcupine?
“It’s not done yet,” Amber defends. “I just wanted you to see it so you can tell me how to fix it.”
“Yeah, that definitely needs to be fixed, Ambs,” TJ says.
Marty watches through the reflection as the twins stare each other down. Amber is the first to break, as she turns back to the mirror. “So?”
He grimaces, “I hate to say it, but we might have to use TJ as a model.”
“Hell yeah you do,” TJ says, standing up. He walks behind Marty and moves to his right, hopping up onto the bathroom counter and sitting on it. “I’m hot as fuck.”
Amber snorts, “Says who?”
“Says your mom!”
“We have the same mom!”
Marty rolls his eyes, “Guys...” The twins continue to bicker, and Marty has to raise his voice. “Guys!”
Their heads snap to look in his direction, and he lifts his right hand to gesture to his head. “Will you please just do this first?” They mutter various apologies, and Marty nods.
“Okay, so you’re gonna wanna base the sides and stuff off of what TJ has,” he explains.
“Easy enough,” Amber breathes. She reaches across the counter for the electric razor. She plugs it into the wall and takes a deep breath. “Okay. How close do you want this?”
“Not too close,” he replies. “I’d almost argue to make it look exactly like TJ’s, but only on the bottom.”
“Do you want to do the top of your hair?” Amber offers. “That way you’ll know what you want it to look like and stuff.”
He shrugs, “Sure.”
“Okay.” Amber flicks the razor on. “Stay still, I don’t want to buzz your ear off.”
TJ chuckles, “Yeah, you’re not as artistic as Da Vinci.”
Marty winces, “That wasn’t—” he squeezes his eyes shut as if to stop himself from saying something. “Sure, TJ.”
Marty sat back and let the faint buzzing sound of the razor lull him into a trance. For one of the first times in his life, he felt safe. Free. He was finally getting to become himself, the real Marty. The Marty that people should have seen from day one.
He tuned in to the song next, letting the lyrics wash over him in waves. When Marty picked music, he liked to be able to feel it. Sure, he had his indie playlists, and they were great, but there were times when he just needed to feel grounded. Being able to feel parts of the song was just liberating. He loved feeling the bass in his throat, feeling the synths ricochet inside of his skull.
Creature comfort makes it painless
Marty smiles, glancing up at the mirror. Amber is locked in concentration, moving carefully around his ears with the razor, while TJ scrolls through his phone absentmindedly.
Born in a diamond mine
It’s all around you but you can’t see it
Born in a diamond mine
It’s kind of funny to think about, really—that one of the only places Marty has ever found solace in was the Jack and Jill bathroom of a set of twins that couldn’t seem to stop arguing. They weren’t arguing now, obviously, but if it were anyone else, he’d get sick of the noise. When his parents fought over him, he’d go into his closet and hide for hours. He learned to keep snacks and water in there, as well as a charger and some blankets. When TJ and Amber fought, though, he knew that they were only playing. They did it as a show of affection as if to say ‘we’re a family and I love you despite everything.’
Marty is snapped from his trance when he sees the black top sheet draped over Amber’s forearm as she holds out a pair of scissors to him. The song changed about a minute ago to something by The Killers. “Your turn,” she says.
He gingerly takes the scissors from her hand and stands before carding his fingers through his hair. He pulls a few strands down and experimentally snips the edges, watching as the tiny hairs flutter down to the bathroom floor. He does this for a little while, pushing his hair back every once in a while to see what it will look like, then ruffling it back to where it was before. After about twenty minutes of snipping away at his hair, he put the scissors down on the counter.
He turns to the twins, “Well?”
There is a pregnant pause until TJ speaks up. “You look like a K-Pop boy,” he comments.
A grin spreads on Marty’s face and he rushes toward TJ, pulling him into a tight hug.
“Again,” TJ chokes out, “Not a hugger.” After a few moments, though, he relaxes into the hug, wrapping his arms around Marty and giving him a few strong pats on the back.
“I can’t believe I’m passing,” Marty says, pulling away from the hug. “Fuck, I’m passing ! Holy shit, dude!”
Amber watches the display fondly. She cleans the mess that they made, sweeping the floor and putting the razor back in the drawer she got it from. Marty goes back into TJ’s room, shutting the door, and appears a few minutes later looking flatter than before.
“How does it fit?” TJ asks.
“It’s a little snug,” he admits. “But, like, in a fitting way? It’s good.” He takes a deep breath, “It’s perfect.”
The twins rush forward and pull Marty into a hug, and he immediately wraps his arms around the two of them. “We’re so proud of you, Amber says, and Marty can feel her tears dampening his clothes. That’s a good thing, though, because he dampen hers only seconds after. It’s nice, he thinks, to have a group like this. His own mini-family that he knows will always be there for him, and that will always see him as he was meant to be—Marty.